Voldemort's Bellatrix
by S4ltv1n3g4r
Summary: Rodolphus does Bellatrix one last favor.  Oneshot.  May contain spoilers.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise.**

My colleagues would have called me foolish. I was bound to be captured and sent to Azkaban any minute, but I couldn't leave her there to be burnt at the stake by overjoyed Hogwartsians--or worse, seized by Greyback. I Apparated her body to a secluded area near the Riddle house, for I knew that was where she would want to lay to rest, where her Lord had once resided.

Losing my Bellatrix was the hardest blow I'd been dealt in my life. My shattered soul had been crushed by a heavy weight, and all of my strength was used to pay her a final tribute. I dug her grave with my bare hands, knowing my every grunt of pain would bring her joy, and, sure enough, as I worked under the cover of trees, I heard the sound of windchimes in the distance. It was probably coming from the Riddle house, but I convinced myself that it was her laughter. My vision blurred with tears.

When at last the hole was deep enough, I placed her body in, stroking her pale and lifeless cheek, remembering the countless crumpled forms of humans that had fallen in her presence. I recalled with a smile how we had tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom, how my skilled and delightfully mad Bellatrix had extracted every bit of pleasure from their screams of protest. Her eyes that day were full of fire, of beautiful burning anger, her cackle sounding through the darkness, and watching her commit that act left me even more in love with her.

My mind drifting back to the present, I contemplated closing her eyes, but concluded that her spirit would be restless, laughing in the face of Death and embracing its simple joys with brutality and sarcasm, just the way she had lived her life. She would not have wanted to rest when she could instead extend her trail of pain. At heart, she was always alert, always ready for more, and so her corpse would be, too. "Send your cousin Sirius plenty of Crucios from me," I whispered.

I levatated the unearthed dirt and covered her, unable to stop staring at the red mound of earth under which my wife now lay. Soon poisonous flowers would take root above her. I dragged a heavy stone and set it at the head of her grave, and with my wand I cut the words:

_In loving memory of  
BELLATRIX LESTRANGE  
May the grief you caused in life  
Outweigh that caused by your untimely demise._

Although she meant so much to me, these were the only words I could think of to mark on her gravestone. With the Dark Lord, she had been so passionate about her work, or rather, her life, as it was all for him. With me, she was distant. I knew little about who she really was, and she showed me none of the affection she gave her Lord, knowing full well that he would never return the favor. I'd watched her torture, but that was only scratching the surface of the complex individual she was, and furthermore, a foolish reason to love her, but I loved her all the same.

It was more than she could say for me. I could never measure up to half the man the Dark Lord was, despite his general lack of humanity. Bellatrix viewed him above all others, spoke to him as she would speak to a lover, tenderly and full of emotion, the way she had never spoken to me. As I realized this, it occurred to me that she was never really mine, but we were both Voldemort's, in different senses, of course. She gave her life and soul to him, and she'd died just the way she would have wanted to: tormenting little girls.

To the soft tinkling of windchimes, I crossed my own surname off the stone, engraving _RIDDLE_ in its place. It's what she would have wanted all along, and as I took one last look at where her remains lay, and, shedding more tears I was satisfied even though I was greiving. It was time for me to let go of my, or rather, Voldemort's, Bellatrix, and in my broken heart, there was no better gift I could give her. Of all the things I could have done, this was the only thing that would have made her happy, and I knew it was true as the sound of windchimes whispered her gratitude.


End file.
